Virginity pledge alternative

The former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav (Rabbi) Ovadia Yosef is known both for his great wisdom and his unfortunate moments with the press. Like father like son, perhaps, as his son recently made a decree that all unmarried men over age 20 must leave Jerusalem. It's meant as an incentive to push them to get married, but of course it sounds not so good. Much like Rav Ovadia's statements.

According to the rabbi, who publishes a weekly column on the Eretz Israel Shelanu leaflet, in the past it was customary to banish "older" single men from the capital as punishment for their refusal to marry and provide for a family.

In recent generations, Sephardi rabbis decided to annul this regulation, but according to Rabbi Yosef it should be reinstated. "Only a yeshiva student who studies Torah has an exceptional permission to postpone marriage, if he fears that marriage might distract him from his studies.

"But normally one must not delay marriage till after 20, and those who do had better leave Jerusalem and go study somewhere else," he wrote.

Last week the rabbi discussed in his column the question of what was the right age for marriage, and concluded that men must wed no later than age 19.

"Any man who reaches the age of 20 must hurry without tarrying, or he might find himself looking for many more years," he stated.

Flu risk perception

My understanding about the 1918 flu is that the first wave had few deaths, and those deaths followed standard pattern of seasonal flu: elderly and very young. The second wave came several months later and was a slightly changed form that had higher mortality, mostly in the healthiest age group, ages 20-40. These people didn't get it the first time around, so they were vulnerable in the second wave when it was more dangerous.

My question: is it possible that all these extreme measures such as closing schools --- e.g., Harvard closed down medical, dental, and public health schools today because of a case in the dental school --- will make the flu epidemic worse rather than better by inducing precaution fatigue and decreasing credibility of preventative measures such as vaccines and shutting down institutions so that when the flu is really serious people will assume it will be low mortality as it is now?

If this follows pattern of 1918, by the time the second scary wave of flu comes around, we will have a vaccine, perhaps even in adequate numbers to cover much of the population, but there's no vaccine for human irrationality. Everyone is getting all fired up now --- lots of parents kept their kids home at a local school here in suburban Baltimore due to 1 case in the school.

When the same thing happens next October or November, will people reason it's not important to be careful since last time turned out okay? Will people not bother to get the vaccine?

When qualitative research is better

I got several phone calls from the same market research company and finally agreed to take the survey for a technology company. They were interested in finding out how companies decide how to purchase technology products, so they asked about 20 screening questions to find out whether I have any role in purchasing and choosing technology, and wanted to follow up with an internet survey about how I choose technology. The screener questions alone took 7 minutes. Who knows how long the internet survey would take, so I turned it down.

Now my role in choosing technology at work is that I use my personal laptop at work and I bought a $150 printer at the beginning of the year and that's it. Clearly not what they have in mind. If they asked me to explain my role, I could explain the printer buying decision in 3 minutes, they could pay someone to code all the responses, and that would be all. They would get better information, and probably get better response rates.

Abstinence makes your brain stronger

"Abstinence Makes the Brain Grow Stronger" read the headline, but it turned out they were talking about abstinence from alcohol during adolescence.

Naughty, but not really abstinence

Ran across this parody abstinence (from vaginal intercourse) -only site while I was looking for abstinence-only resources for an MPP student I was advising. It's less funny than true.

Germaine Greer on abstinence-ish

At the very beginning of
this show with 1970s feminist Germaine Greer (author of the Female Eunuch which I remember really liking when I was 14 or 15), she mentions a couple interesting anecdotes about young adult/late adolescent women and sexual decision-making.

1. One of her students didn't feel ready for penetrative sex, and eventually her boyfriend left her for it. She would meet men at parties to hook up with, and say "By the way, I don't do penetrative sex." and the men would just walk away. Which is a strange anecdote. The qualitative book _Hooking Up_ describes most hook-ups as not going that far, often just kissing (at least that's what they would tell the sociologist.) Meanwhile this woman's housemates all had boyfriends and were all sexually active and having penetrative sex "because it was required of them" in Greer's words, but they were less accustomed to sexual pleasure.

2. She says Sex in the City depresses her because the characters focus so much on men and sex.


Just anecdotes, but I find it fascinating from the perspective of the earlier wave of feminism and earlier feminist sexual values.

Hare-brained idea of the day

I'm a total non-biologist, but I'm just putting this idea out there.

My understanding is that a woman's sense of smell allows her to figure out who is a good immune match --- men who smell good to her have complementary immune function and she would have healthier children with them. Oral contraceptives (OCs) interfere with this function so that a woman on OCs might marry someone who isn't genetically complementary and doesn't smell good to her after she goes off them. The number of women who chose their husbands while taking oral contraceptives has increased enormously since their invention. I wonder whether this has any social or medical implications: are the children of women who met their husbands while taking OCs less healthy in some way? Are these couples more likely to get divorced?

Anyone know any research on this idea?